Courtney Clenney, the OnlyFans model charged with murdering her boyfriend in their luxury Miami high-rise in April, fatally stabbed him in the heart, authorities said Thursday.
The charges came after months of speculation about Clenney’s role in the death of 27-year-old Christian Obumseli, and repeated claims by the woman and her attorney that she acted out of self-defense. But prosecutors say that if the relationship was mutually abusive, she was often the instigator, and finally went too far.
A 26-year-old Instagram influencer, Clenney is charged with second-degree murder in connection with the April 3 incident. Her defense attorney, Frank Prieto, confirmed to The Daily Beast on Wednesday that his client was taken into custody in Hawaii, where she had been at a rehab facility for PTSD.
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The charges paint a picture of years of tumult in the relationship between Clenney and Obumseli, but also specifically claim that the model repeatedly abused the cryptocurrency trader. The arguments between the couple got so extreme, according to an arrest warrant obtained by The Daily Beast, that an employee at their luxury dwelling was “moving toward legal action to evict” them.
“The violent and toxic two-year relationship of Christian Obumseli and Courtney Clenney did not have to end in tragedy with Christian’s murder as a victim of domestic violence,” Miami State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Thursday.
The Miami Police Department previously said that on April 3, officers responded to a report of a stabbing at the One Paraiso luxury building around 5 p.m., where they found Obumseli with a “knife wound.”
The warrant states that when officers arrived at the scene, there was “blood on the kitchen island dripping to the master bedroom/bathroom and back to the living room.” The knife was by the living room couch, next to a bloody bedsheet.
“There was additionally a blood trail leading from the living room to the guest room,” the warrant states. “At the entrance of the guest bedroom, there was a puddle of coagulated blood and blood transfer on the wall, evidencing that the victim collapsed in this room before attempting to return toward the front door.”
Officers found Obumseli in Clenney’s arms in “another puddle of coagulated blood.” The warrant notes that the amount of blood throughout the apartment indicates Obumseli was “bleeding for an extend[ed] period before police arrived.”
Obumseli was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. An autopsy report revealed that he suffered a “stab wound to the chest… and that the knife punctured the subclavian artery.”
“The knife entered in a downward angle to the depth of eight centimeters,” the warrant states.
The angle and direction of the knife, Rundle said on Thursday, call into question Clenney’s claim that she threw the knife at her boyfriend from ten feet away. The state attorney said that previous statements, 911 calls, and videos show Clenney was usually the aggressor in their relationship.
In one violent episode captured on video just two months before the killing, Clenney attacked her boyfriend in an elevator. During the video of the February 2022 incident, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, Clenney is seen striking Obumseli before the elevator doors close after pounding the touch screen of the elevator in anger. Repeatedly slapping, hitting, and grabbing Obumseli’s hair, she appears to persist even as he tries to ward her off. The pair then seem to be yelling at each other while Clenney continues the onslaught before finally the elevator door opens and Obumseli runs away.
Clenney is promptly seen storming after him—lunging before the clip cuts out.
In a statement, Prieto said the elevator video did not depict the events leading up to the fatal incident and claimed “Obumseli was the abuser” in the relationship.
“He would manipulate and abuse Courtney in private when he thought nobody was around,” the lawyer said.
“Nobody has ever denied that Courtney and her abuser had a tumultuous relationship,” he added.
The warrant notes that since November 2020, the pair “had a tempestuous relationship… with multiple incidents of domestic violence from both sides.” The relationship was so ugly that the pair broke up several times, including just days before Obumseli’s murder. The warrant states that while they separated in the last week of March, they got back together just days later—and “arguments began almost immediately.”
On April 1, the warrant states, police were called to the 22nd-floor condo, but no arrests were made at the time.
On the day of the killing, investigators say, the couple played “with their dogs in the apartment.” At some point, Obumseli left to get them sandwiches. Investigators say that at around 4:01 p.m., Clenney called Obumseli before going live on Instagram.
About 30 minutes later, she called him a second time after posting her Instagram video—around when he returned to the apartment. Ten minutes later, the warrant states that Clenney called her mother, Deborah, who told police she heard the pair in an argument. Clenney called her mother again at 4:49 p.m.—a call that lasted over seven minutes.
One minute later, Clenney called 911 to say that Obumseli “was suffering a stab wound and requesting help.”
“On that call, [Obumseli] can be heard in the background repeatedly saying he is dying and cannot feel his arm,” the warrant states, adding that the model could be heard saying “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Police say Clenney provided “several inconsistent accounts about the incident.” Initially, the warrant states, Clenney said she “armed herself with a knife” after Obumseli “shoved her against the wall by the neck, though not choking her, and then she claimed he threw her to the ground but then allowed her to get up.”
Clenney, however, had no physical injuries despite the purported violent episode.
The warrant states that Clenney questioned her own actions, telling officers at one point: “I do not think that this was… I don’t really know. I really don’t know if this was justified at all.”
